Teacher Induction Program

Due to constraints brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, we will not be accepting a new cohort into our Teacher Induction program in 2021. However, the Exploratorium is committed to supporting educators during this time. If you'd like to stay up to date with our resources and other professional development opportunities for educators, we encourage you to sign up for our Educator Newsletter.

Are You a New Science Teacher?

The Exploratorium Teacher Institute created the Teacher Induction Program (TIP) to support those newest to our favorite career: teaching science. We respect new teachers as professionals and strive to respond to their needs by providing a range of science-specific supports designed to welcome them into the Teacher Institute’s long-standing community of science teaching and learning.

We invite novice middle and high school science teachers in the San Francisco Bay Area to apply to this inquiry-based and content-rich professional development program especially created to support them in their science classrooms. Since 1998, we have supported more than 500 novice science teachers during their first years in the classroom. Most of these teachers have chosen to stay in this field, and many of them are now leaders in their schools and districts.

Please consider applying and joining the ranks of thousands of Exploratorium Teacher Institute alumni! Ideal applicants should have less than two years of formal teaching experience in a secondary science classroom (student teaching does not count).

Benefits of Our Two-Year Teacher Induction Program

• Participate in Saturday workshops and Summer Institutes led by Exploratorium staff scientists and educators and designed to build your teaching repertoire using an NGSS approach.
• Learn to teach and plan phenomena-based lessons and units for your classroom.
• Get expert advice from our experienced science mentors and coaches.
• Receive generous stipends for participation in workshops, group meetings, and the Summer Institute.
• Obtain graduate level continuation credit for a low fee.
• Gain automatic acceptance into the Summer Institute.

Program Timeline for Our Two-Year Teacher Induction Program

• Attend our Saturday Orientation Meeting each August for the two years of your program (August 2019 and August 2020).
• Participate in Saturday Content Workshops that you choose from a menu of options (two per semester).
• Come to specially designed New Teacher Workshops that you choose from a menu of options (two per semester).
• Engage in mentor support-group meetings (two or more per semester).
• Work with experienced Exploratorium teacher-coaches through classroom observations and feedback/planning meetings (three per semester).
• Spend three weeks with us in our Summer Institute (June/July, 2020).

The Exploratorium Teacher Institute's Teacher Induction Program is not associated with California Teacher Induction (formerly Beginning Teacher Support and Assessment or BTSA), and our program is not designed to help new teachers clear their credentials.

About the Teacher Institute

The Teacher Induction Program is part of the Exploratorium Teacher Institute. Founded in 1984 by a group of physics teachers and museum scientists, the Exploratorium Teacher Institute has provided thousands of secondary science teachers professional development through our Summer Institutes, Saturday Workshops, conferences, and other teaching and learning programs. Our mission is to create and support a collaborative community of teachers, at all levels of their careers, through professional development that joyfully emphasizes the teaching and learning of science as a process for understanding the world around us.